Year Push Gets Housing Works Employees Union Vote
AIDS services group fi nally agrees on terms with Retail, Wholesale, Department Store unit
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Following months of delays
and stalling by
management, employees
at Housing Works, which
provides services for homeless New
Yorkers living with HIV/ AIDS, will
fi nally be able to vote to unionize
in the coming weeks.
Labor organizers and Housing
Works honchos have signed a new
agreement that paves the way to
hold an election by mail with ballots
going out starting November
20 and due back December 14, according
to a Friday social media
post by the Housing Works Union.
A leader with the Retail, Wholesale
and Department Store Union
(RWDSU) — which organized the
union drive for Housing Works —
said it was about time that workers
can cast their vote.
“It’s been a long long time,” said
RWDSU organizer Adam Obernauer.
“Let’s hope that there’s no lastminute
pushback this time. We’re
just looking forward to actually
having a vote and workers having
a say in the process.”
The announcement comes after
a year-long battle since workers
fi rst walked out of their offi ces in
October 2019 to address a wide
range of workplace concerns, including
too high caseloads, shoddy
healthcare plans, and insuffi cient
paid time-off policies.
The nonprofi t, founded in the
1990s, provides support for some
of the most vulnerable New Yorkers
with HIV/AIDS and experiencing
homelessness. It also operates several
thrift stores around the city
and a bookshop and café in Manhattan
to fund its services.
Housing Works staffers fi led for
an election in February with the
National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB) with more than 400 signed
union authorization cards out of
some 600 company employees.
Over the following months, organizers
faced the twin challenges of
the COVID-19 outbreak and management’s
alleged union-busting
efforts delaying progress by appealing
to the NLRB’s Washington,
Housing Works employees pushing to organize at the Brooklyn offi ce of the National Labor Relations
Board in February.
DC, offi ces, staffed by appointees
of President Donald Trump, to
toss the petition.
The mail-in ballots were originally
supposed to go out at the end
of July, but the nonprofi t’s bigwigs
and their labor law fi rm Seyfarth
Shaw LLP — which advertises itself
as keeping workplaces “unionfree”—
fi led an injunction with
the board on July 23 arguing that
Housing Works’s business model
has shifted signifi cantly since it
started operating two COVID-19
“isolation shelters” in hotels, employing
some 80 people.
Given the many layoffs during
the health crisis and the large
number of new employees, Housing
Works claimed the earlier petition
was no longer representative
of its staff.
RWDSU denounced the nonprofi
t’s leaders, especially CEO
Charles King, for trying to delay
the vote and dilute union support
by hiring new staff.
The union also fi led complaints
with the federal labor board alleging
the nonprofi t laid off several
workers as retribution for their
union activity.
Housing Works’ president, Matthew
Bernardo, at the time, denied
that any of the 196 total furloughs
and layoffs since March were a result
of union activity, noting that
they still employ union campaigners
and that it was simply trying
to have all employees have a say in
the union vote.
MATT TRACY
The NLRB eventually sided with
Housing Works, citing the long delays
and the large turnover as a
reason to re-negotiate terms.
The feds tasked their Brooklyn
offi ce, the union, and Housing
Works management with drafting
EMPLOYMENT
a new agreement that includes all
new employees, which both parties
signed on November 5.
Obernauer said the board’s decision
was unprecedented in half a
century’s worth of labor cases, arguing
that new employees normally
join a union after a vote happens,
rather than pushing back a vote
and redrawing the electorate every
time there are staffi ng changes.
“Given the far-right-wing tint of
the Trump board in DC, they made
this decision,” he said. “We don’t
agree with that, neither does 50
years of case law.”
But the labor organizer said they
will now move forward and try to
canvass all new employees to cast
their ballot for the union.
“If we need to include all the new
workers we will,” he said. “We’re not
about not including more workers,
we just didn’t want these delays to
happen.”
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